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Josh Fink writes "Seems like the French are at it again — They have broken the wheeled train speed record once again, coming close to breaking the all time record of 361 miles per hour, held by a Japanese maglev train. It was last broken back in 1990. The new train was clocked at going a little more than 350 miles per hour. The old record was 320.2 miles per hour. From the article: "The TGV, short for "train a grande vitesse," as France's bullet trains are called, is made up of three double-decker cars between two engines. It has been equipped with larger wheels than the usual TGV to cover more ground with each rotation and a stronger, 25,000-horsepower engine, said Alain Cuccaroni, in charge of the technical aspects of testing." You can check out the full article here."

stupid_is (716292) writes "Following on from the previous story, it's being reported by the BBC that Apple and EMI are partnering with the result being that users can purchase DRM-free versions of the EMI catalogue on iTunes. The downside is that this "premium" content will cost an additional 30c per track, making it $1.29 per track. There will be the added bonus that the downloaded tracks will be twice the sound quality as before.

For a variety of reasons related to consumer demand, social dynamics, regulatory conditions, and product development priorities, mobile media is developing far faster outside of North America. Consumers, for their part, seem to be unaware of the faster and more advanced mobile media services available in other countries. As a consequence, they respond with amazement to products and services that have become commonplace in Japan, South Korea and many parts of Europe. The limited North American understanding of the fascinating developments in mobile media available overseas means, in turn, that companies are not being pressed by consumers to expand the pace and nature of product innovation.

It is easy to understand the enthusiasm for iPhone. One wonders what the reaction would be like if young consumers really knew what they were missing."